We’ve all been there…
…complaints from clients or candidates that you’ve taken too long to respond…issues for which you don’t have a great answer…or when you can see someone’s frustrating building because there was just too much back-and-forth before a problem was solved.
What can you do?
You’re certainly trying your best – and the last thing you want to do is make a client or candidate unhappy. But how do you keep up with the service needs of your business when you’re already trying as hard as you can?
At Haley Marketing, we pride ourselves on consistently delivering shareworthy customer service. It’s one of our core values, and if you want to know some of the secrets of our success, check out these posts:
Tips to ROCK your customer service (part 1)
Tips to ROCK your customer service (part 2)
11 stats to up your customer service game
Delight your staffing clients with these 4 ideas
But sometimes advice like this isn’t enough – you need to look at the data to find specific areas where you can improve your service. We know. We analyze our service data every month, and two months ago we identified one key area that was having a negative impact on our service – “number of touches.” In October, our single-touch resolution scores was 26.1% – which means we closed about one out of every four tickets with one touch. But the industry average is 39.3%, so we were not closing enough tickets as quickly as we should have. And excessive back and fourth on any service issue leads to client (and candidate) frustration.
What did we do?
We talked within our team, created a game-plan for the upcoming month, and set a goal: Increase the percentage of single-touch resolution support tickets – even if only by a little bit – while not lowering our overall satisfaction scores.
All month long, on every ticket, we strove make sure to provide the information our clients needed – and anticipate the secondary questions they were likely to ask. We tried to offer more thorough first responses that would reduce the back and forth needed to fully resolve issues.
Well?  What were the results?!
We increase our one-touch resolution by nearly 50 percent! In November, our one-touch resolution jumped to 34.6%, and more importantly, our client satisfaction score increased from 99.2% to 100%! Not only did we resolve support tickets faster, but our clients were happier!  And as a added benefit, reducing multiple touches gave our support team more time to focus on delivering better service!
We can do it – and so can you!
To improve your service, really dissect your service process. Get into the data. Look for places where you can make small, incremental improvements in very specific areas. You don’t have to make massive changes in order to make big improvements, you just have to make the right changes.
Take a look at every touch point you have with your clients and candidates. See what you could do to make each experience faster or otherwise better. Develop a game plan to improve your process. Get everyone on your team on board to implement the changes. And then watch the results. You’ll be surprised at how easy it’ll be – and how much happier your staff, clients, and candidates will become!
Running out of time in your day?  Need help writing a blog or sharing to social media?

At Client Business Services & Associates, we take great pride in helping our clients fill open jobs. If you’re looking to fill your open job orders with great talent,please contact us today.

Brian Vaccaro, Haley Marketing